The Waste and Ruin of Drink
The cattle wealth of the United States for 1911 is reported to have been $1,499,523,607. The American Grocer admits that the drink bill for the same time was $1,567,470,514, but other reliable figures show that the drink bill for that period was $2,362,046,508. Even the lowest estimate shows that drink destroyed more money wealth during that year than all the cattle wealth of the nation amounted to. And to this money waste we must add the moral depravity, the suffering, and the misery that were the result of the drinking. Why is it that men will insist on upholding and legalizing a business that is causing so much waste and ruin? If some plague threatened to stalk through our fair land and destroy all our cattle, the whole nation would be aroused to a frenzy. But here is a traffic that worse than uselessly wastes each year more than the cattle wealth of the nation, and nothing is done about it, except by a comparatively few of the people.